California heat is a dry, desert heat. Unlike the environment I grew up in of staggering humid heat, CA heat will suck you dry without you even knowing it. So, to hang out in a hot, inland California day, one must hydrate herself…with water. Not mead.

Sunday, we went to Renaissance Pleasure Faire and had a grand time. So grand in fact, that I didn’t think to drink much water through out the day in the sun and heat. Instead, I was sipping my wee little cup of ice cold mead. Ah…the sweet nectar of life that slowly kills you if you’re not careful. The barmaster warned me of its potency when I told him I’ve never had mead before. Sip it, don’t chug it, he said. And I obeyed. I sipped at it, and each sweet sip refreshed me. Each sip seemed to have quenched my thirst and that delighted me to no end. It just wasn’t really quenching anything scientifically speaking.

Also a good note for people on certain medication that make your skin sensitive to the sun: reapply sunblock every 4 hours. Even you have the easy to tan and never burn Asian skin can’t help you if you’re on such medication. No, I didn’t get completely burned, but I can feel the skin on my arms and shoulders hurting. Then again, it could be the aches from the fever.

As I am now, at home, having a running low grade fever since I got back. And now my entire body is reacting oddly to dehydration and my attempt to rehydrate, and it’s freaking out.

Coincidentally, as Brandon kindly pointed out when he called to check in on me a while ago:

B: “Do you know that of all the day you were going to stay home sick, you have to pick today.”

Me: “Why? What’s today? The immigration law protest day?”

B: “Well there’s that. But it’s the Day without Immigrants day. It’s kind of screwed up that you’re not at your work.”

Great. I somehow managed to participate in a protest I didn’t agree with. I might as well really burst in to flames now and stop feeling this way.